Our favorite 8th grader, John Howard Hassmann, is at it again! His 4th annual March Madness for MANA kicks off tomorrow night in San Antonio! Last year, JH set a goal of $1500 and raised $3500, which allowed us to get lifesaving MANA to 70 kids in Tanzania. To participate in JH’s bracket:

4. Make multiple bracket picks and changes up until the 11:15 am CST deadline on Thursday, March 19.

6. Send donation of $10 or more per bracket, cash or check (check made out to MANA), care of John Howard Hassmann to 531 Elmhurst, SA, TX 78209 or donate directly online @ www.MANAnutrition.org and let him know how much you are donating.

7. A $200 gift card for the winner and a $50 gift card for 2nd place have been donated to the effort.

This is Obama. Obama is a young boy from Kisumu, Kenya who our friend Greg and his wife met back in September 2013. They met Obama at a ministry clinic where he was malnourished and nursing a machete wound to his head. He was a five year old who looked like a toddler due to malnutrition. The clinic started feeding Obama MANA RUTF and one year later, you can see the impact it has had!

Ever wonder why at least one NFL owner doesn’t put Tim Tebow on his roster? Don’t get me wrong, this is not a debate about whether Tebow is any good or not. This is just a basic business decision, based on math. If the NFL is a business, why not make a smart business decision and pick a guy who sells tickets, jerseys and gets fans more interested in your business? Recent reports indicate that Tebow is still one of the most popular NFL players, even though he has not played a down in the NFL for almost two years! Regardless of whether you think Tebow can actually play football, he was at least good enough to play for a major college and to take an NFL team to the playoffs, so why not use one spot to add a guy who will increase your bottom line? Not to mention that everywhere Tebow has been, his teammates talk about what a positive influence he was on the team. Obviously I’m a Tebow fan, if not for emotional reasons then for pragmatic, business reasons. Tebow detractors, however, say that thoughts of him being a legitimate NFL QB are pure fantasy.

Did I just say fantasy? Maybe there is a league where there are millions of NFL team owners who can make Tebow’s NFL dream a reality (a fantasy-reality…which is a multi-billion-real-dollar industry, by the way) by adding him to their rosters? He can sit there on your bench as a backup QB. If nothing else, at least he can help keep your team morale up by being a positive influence on your other fantasy bench players who are not used to being benched. Oddly, 1.3% of all fantasy teams already have him, an inexplicable stat mentioned recently by USA Today‘s Chris Chase. That got us thinking. What if we tied Tebow’s fantasy roster position to a real world impact?

At MANA Nutrition, we think fantasy worlds are sometimes preferable to reality. The reality is that a child dies from complications arising from malnutrition every 8 seconds. That’s four in the allotted time to get off an NFL play. We have this fantasy that we could all live in a world where kids don’t needlessly die like this. So, we make a little peanut butter concoction called RUTF that comes in a packet about the size of an iPhone. When malnourished kids eat it, they don’t die. Nobel Prize winners like Doctors without Borders call RUTF “a revolution in nutritional affairs.”

One of our donors tossed out a challenge: Get 20,000 fantasy football owners to add Tebow to their squad and she would donate $100,000 to save malnourished children with RUTF! She’s offering $5 for every owner who adds Tebow (up to 20,000 owners). That would generate two containers of RUTF (1,800 cases!). If real NFL owners won’t claim Tebow for their own economic wellbeing, what if our fantasy-world owners would claim him for real-world impact? Besides, wouldn’t it be just like Tebow to save starving kids in his spare time without really even trying?

A daily dose costs about $1, so $5 would go a long way towards saving a child’s life as part of a six week treatment. To see the impact RUTF is already having, just watch 30 seconds of this amazing 60 Minutes piece by Anderson Cooper that shows RUTF saving lives.

So, while Tim Tebow may not be the savior that most football teams are looking for (or that his Heisman hype predicted), in a convergence of fantasy and reality, you and he can work together to save a child. In a world where stats really matter, maybe we’ll improve on that “one every 8 seconds” stat from earlier.

Use #TebowOnYoSquad to show us that you added Tebow to your roster and $5 will be donated in your honor!

]]>http://mananutrition.org/what-does-acute-malnutrition-look-like-for-a-child/feed03rd Annual March Madness for MANAhttp://mananutrition.org/3rd-annual-march-madness-for-mana
http://mananutrition.org/3rd-annual-march-madness-for-mana#commentsFri, 07 Mar 2014 17:04:08 +0000http://mananutrition.org/?p=2578Our friend, John Howard Hassmann, is kicking off his 3rd annual “March Madness for MANA” basketball pool! Last year, he raised $800 for us and this year he is shooting for over $1500 (basketball pun intended). John Howard is awesome. And he is 13. You should definitely think about getting in on this.

This month, we’re very excited to be partnering with BIC Bands, a company that makes non-slip headbands so you can focus on your workout and not your headband! BIC Bands chooses a new charity each month to support with the sale of every headband and we’re honored they’ve chosen MANA for March…in honor of National Peanut Month! They have tons of cute bands to choose from, so check them out!

We’re so proud of our friend Luke Mysse and his family for leaving all of the comforts of home behind to spread the word about severe acute malnutrition and the miracle of RUTF. Follow Luke’s journey, here!

]]>http://mananutrition.org/help-luke-stop-sam/feed0A World Food Day for All World Viewshttp://mananutrition.org/a-world-food-day-for-all-world-views
http://mananutrition.org/a-world-food-day-for-all-world-views#commentsWed, 16 Oct 2013 16:46:43 +0000http://mananutrition.org/?p=2469

“While it fails to make most of our calendars, every October the world selects a day to recognize the importance of food, and they call it World Food Day. This year’s is today, and it comes in the midst of a political climate where we seem to agree on less than ever. So perhaps we can find some slight encouragement in recognizing that, on the issue of food, there really aren’t stratified, opposing ideological camps. Food is good! We all like it. We all want there to be enough.”

Seattle, WA (October 16, 2013) As a central part of its global health strategy to address malnutrition and undernourishment of children under 5 in developing communities, international aid organization World Vision recently confirmed and celebrated an RUTF donation to Chad, thanks to a new partnership with Good Spread peanut butter.

Operating under a Buy-One-Give-One marketing model, Good Spread kicked off a campaign this spring, generating sales of its all-natural peanut butter packets and match donations from private donors and MANA Nutrition, to donate a total of more than 90,000 sachets of MANA Nutrition RUTF for children in need through World Vision’s malnutrition programming in Chad.

Good Spread, using the BOGO model popularized by TOMS shoes, approached World Vision to partner on distribution for the giving side of the model. The campaign’s success is one World Vision celebrates on World Food Day, October 16.

“We’re thrilled to see Good Spread, World Vision and MANA Nutrition working together to feed malnourished children in such an effective and creative way,” said Mark Slagle of Good Spread. “The customers who crave our peanut butter are now able to see how their actions and their purchases can so positively influence the world, simply by eating peanut butter!”

RUTF is a ready-to-use therapeutic food of fortified peanut paste, milk powder, vitamins and minerals. It’s easy for a mother to open, easy for a child to eat, and tasty. Three servings a day for eight weeks can save the life of a starving child. World Vision values partnerships that address the critical issue of severe acute malnutrition in children under five. The World Health Organization reports that 20 million children under age 5 become undernourished each year, and as many as one million die, making these partnerships absolutely critical.

MANA Nutrition is a long-time partner of World Vision, providing critical donations of RUTF in several African countries where programs address severe acute malnutrition. World Vision is extremely grateful for the exciting addition of Good Spread to this partnership.

“World Vision is proud to partner with Good Spread, a small company with a huge vision, and MANA Nutrition, a leader in solutions to child malnutrition,” said Abby van Horne, World Vision’s director for health and nutrition partnerships. “We are deeply grateful for Good Spread and MANA Nutrition’s desire to build a three-way partnership that is literally saving lives, and offering hope when no other options are available.”

About Good Spread

Good Spread is much more than a peanut butter company. When you buy a packet of our all-natural peanut butter, we are able to give away packets of Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food to children suffering from malnutrition. Our mission is to help good spread and we’d love for you to join us. To satisfy your peanut butter cravings, visit www.helpgoodspread.com or follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @helpgoodspread.

About World Vision

World Vision is a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their communities worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty. World Vision serves the world’s poor regardless of a person’s religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. For more information please visit www.worldvision.org/press or Twitter at @WorldVisionNews.

About MANA Nutrition

MANA Nutrition produces ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a fortified peanut paste designed specifically to treat children diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition (SAM). On average, three packets of MANA per day for six weeks will save the life of a starving child. We also seek to spread awareness of SAM and find creative ways to get RUTF to more of the 20 million children who need it each year. For more information, please visit www.mananutrition.org or follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @mananutrition.

MANA employees, Regina & Michael, are presented with a check from StopSAM by Co-Founders Mike Levison and Luke Mysse.

Last week, our good friends and Co-Founders of StopSAM, Mike Levison and Luke Mysse, visited the factory to present MANA employees with a $5,000 check! This donation will buy about 13,000 lifesaving packets of MANA! We are so grateful to StopSAM and for the supporters who are helping Mike and Luke make their dream a reality.

Mike and Luke, along with Mike’s daughters and Luke’s dad, also received a tour of the factory and a chance to meet many of the MANA staff. “You got this feeling that you were somewhere special when you were walking around; this wasn’t just any factory. The smell of peanut butter, the sound of the machines spitting out packets and an overall sense of purpose. The company culture was great. Every person I met there knew how special this place was. They knew they were saving lives,” said Luke.

Plant Manager, Loris, teaches the StopSAM team how RUTF is made.

StopSAM founders, Mike and Luke

StopSAM looks forward to many more updates like this one, putting 100% of the money they raise towards buying packets. Learn more about the venture, here, and how Luke plans to help stop SAM by riding his bike across the US this spring, here.